Air Florida Flight 90 Remember this

[johnbr]

Remember this
Air Florida Flight 90 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight scheduled to fly from Washington National Airport to Fort Lauderdale, but it never made its destination. The aircraft struck the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. and collided with seven occupied vehicles on the bridge before plunging through the ice into the Potomac River. Out of the 79 lives on board only 5 survived. Four motorists on the bridge were also killed.

 

[vikingBerserker]

That's a fake photo, the bridge was not a suspension bridge.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

That's a fake photo, the bridge was not a suspension bridge.

It may have been a fake photo ( the photo didn't show on my phone), but the EPR readings the CAPTAIN was depending on definitely were fake! The First Officer (who knew the 737 much better than the Captain) realized something was amiss but was too browbeaten to intervene. Listen to the tape. The engine intake air data probes were iced up, causing the EPRs to read high. Larry Wheaton (the Captain) never let the engines get up to full takeoff power, as he was focused solely on the EPRs.
I took a flying lesson from him in an earlier incarnation and swore "Never again!" He was the most arrogant bustard I've ever shared a cockpit with! It's tragic that his ego cost so many lives. Not that I'm prejudiced or anything.
That accident, BTW, was one of a series in the late 70s and early 80s that led to the doctrine of Cockpit Resource Management and the end of official approval of left seat tyranny.
Wes

PS: Larry had spent the six years prior to Air Florida flying DC-3s for Air Sunshine. These planes had Pratt 1830s designed for 115/145 purple brew, but were running on 100LL gas. If one wanted to achieve published performance without blowing engines, one needed to watch the MAP gauges like a hawk, especially in the hot and humid conditions of South Florida. The margin between degraded takeoff performance and detonation was razor thin. It's hard to imagine someone with Larry's rigid personality shaking the ingrained habit of fixating on one parameter, especially with the jet offering up a "master parameter" such as EPR. I suspect from the tape that the FO, who had flown 737s in a previous job, realized that the N1s, fuel flows and EGTs didn't look right for the indicated EPRs. He had the thrust levers in his hand and could have pushed them up, but I suspect he was too cowed by Larry's dominating personality.

 

[stona]

It was a factor in the British European Airways Flight 548 crash, the so called 'Staines air disaster'.
A recent documentary suggested that the 'left seat tyranny', as you put it, was the primary factor in the accident.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Dana Bell]

I remember the crash well: I was in the south-bound bridge when Flight 90 hit the north-bound bridge. The 737 hit the ice beneath our feet, but we were all looking up river, where we expected a incoming aircraft to be coming from! Wasn't the crash on January 13th?

Cheers,


Dana

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Wasn't the crash on January 13th?

You noticed!

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Another crash in this series, an Air New England Twin Otter in Hyannis MA in 1979, involved another friend of mine. He was a new hire First Officer stuck flying with the Director of Flight Ops in his first week flying the line. They were way past duty time limits and busting minimums when the DFO died of a heart attack while scud running 100 feet BELOW Decision Height trying to sneak in to HYA which was reporting zero-zero in fog. Dick barely realized that the skipper was unconscious when, as he said, "the trees started coming through the windshield". DeHaviland builds a tough airplane. The only fatality was the Captain, and he was dead before the plane hit. They had been on duty 17 hours and Dick hadn't done a thing all day except "Sit still and keep your mouth shut!"
Cheers,
Wes

PS: 18 years later, my friend Kathleen had the right engine of her ATR72 explode at V1+2 Kts as she was rotating for liftoff at ORD during her first week flying the line for American Eagle. She wedged her 5'7" 135 pound frame against the rudder pedal and kept the beast straight (90 lbs effort in the '72) and said "Past V1, continuing to V2, gear up, engine failure checklist."
Capt: "8500 feet remaining, you can abort if you want." (Cool like cucumber)
FO: "You want to take it?
Capt: "You're doing fine. Abort or go?"
FO: "Abort!"
Capt: "Roger, aborting, you have three green, flaps coming full, be ready for the swerve as the flaps come down. I'm pulling the fire handle, right engine. Nice touchdown! Easy on the reverse, seven thousand remaining." "Tower, Eagle 791's aborting, engine fire right side."
Tower: "We see that, 791, equipment's rolling." "United 83, execute missed approach, climb runway heading to three thousand, contact Departure 118.3. Emergency on the runway."
If that had happened to me as a brand new Be1900 FO it would have been elbows and a-holes in the cockpit as the Captain seized control and the PF/PnF roles were reversed.
Cockpit management had come a long way in 18 years.